BOSTON, July 26 (UPI) -- An inmate at Boston's Walpole "Supermax" prison was able to break out of his cell and distribute razor blades to other inmates, the Boston Herald reports.
The incident at the facility, which houses convicts considered dangerous, occurred last week. The report said the inmate was able to break out because of defective cell doors.
The incident was the second escape within the Disciplinary Disorders Unit at MCI-Cedar Junction since November. In that incident, a prison guard was blinded in his left eye, and another wounded, after a convict pried open his cell door and attacked both with a sharpened pen, the report said.
Department of Correction spokeswoman Diane Wiffin said the agency is trying to hire a vendor to "evaluate the issue" of whether a computer glitch is letting prisoners pry cell doors open.
But Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union, says there have been numerous complaints about the faulty doors in the unit which have been ignored, the Herald reported. The convict in the latest incident was subsequently subdued.
